“I am accepting my invitation to serve as a Health Education Extension Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania, departing October 10, 2011.
I hereby certify that I have read the Volunteer Assignment Description, Online Welcome Book and Core Expectations and agree to abide by the policies therein.
June 10, 2011”
And one, two, three, breathe. That has to be, hands down and without a doubt the single most exhilarating and terrifying email I have ever written in my life. Mostly exhilarating. I think. To date, anyway. Even as I’m writing this, I keep staring at it, getting goosebumps. Anyway, how did I get to this point, you ask? It was fun, let me tell you (insert sarcasm here).
I started thinking about joining the Peace Corps sometime during college. Well, seriously, anyway. I think I first thought about it after my high school trip to Germany, when I was first officially bitten by the travel bug; but in college, I started thinking about it pretty seriously. Then I graduated and discovered that I have private loans that don’t defer–not even for the noblest of causes, not even if you’re dead broke. Which I was pretty jazzed to learn. *Side note, if you ever read this blog with any kind of regularity, you will discover that sarcasm is basically an underlying theme–so if you ever wonder if I’m meaning to be sarcastic, let me tell you now that I probably am.* Anyhoo, discovering this lovely bit of information pretty much shot my dream in the foot. I then spent the next several years working a job where I love the people I work with, but feel that the only source of challenge for me is whether or not I can keep my patience every day (and sometimes minute-to-minute). Seriously, if I were ever to have a trigger for Tourette’s, this job would be it. Please let me clarify: for the most part, I really, really like working with my patients and I LOVE my co-workers. They have all made the bad parts of this job tolerable and have (so far) kept me from totally losing it. That being said, I need some kind of intellectual stimulation and variety for my work to give me a sense of fulfillment, and those are kind of hard to come by. A few years ago, after one particularly long, wretched day at a clinic I wasn’t used to, I came home and was wallowing in self pity (and a bottle of cab sauv), when I decided something very important: nothing was going to change on its own. As far as I know, most hospitals require some kind of professional license before they let you actually practice on real people and there are no psychics on the payroll at National Geographic who know my dreams and are pushing for me to be their next big photojournalist. It’s up to me to make it change.
So I started looking at nurse practitioner and PA programs, only to find that they are SUPER competitive and my average grades in college were not going to cut it (soap box moment: kids, Cs may earn degrees, but they’re not going to do a damn thing for you if you have plans for continuing your education). It was just about then that I also started kicking around the PC idea again, but then there was that hurdle about the loans. Then I thought about the chance to travel, to learn a new language and immerse myself in a new culture, to do something for people that haven’t had the ridiculously opulent life that I’ve gotten just from the sheer luck of being born into a certain society, the traveling, the potential pathways this may give my future, the traveling again… the way it’ll look on a resume (I can’t even lie, I’m pretty stoked about this, too). I decided that this is a risk and an opportunity that I HAVE to take. So I applied. And opened savings account (for all the loan payments I’ll have to make while I’m gone) the next day.
I submitted my application in March 2010 and was put on hold, as I told them the earliest I could possibly leave was this September. Then, last August, my hold was released, I got an interview, got to be finger printed for my background check and was officially nominated for Health Extension in Central Asia on September 28, 2010. And so it began. Three different doctor visits, three trips to the dentist, a CAT scan and I-lost-count-of-how-many blood draws later, my medical packet was in the mail and the waiting began. And if I thought my job tested my patience, I was so wrong. My job has nothing on the PC. The office in DC got my medical packet December 7 and I didn’t get medical clearance until March 15th. Then I didn’t hear much else until June 2nd when EVERYTHING started happening.
I got an email to set up a phone interview, which we did the following day. My placement officer asked a few questions and I talked too fast and apologized a lot, but overall, everything went pretty well. Then she said that, due to budget cuts, the program that I was nominated for filled up or was cut (I don’t quite remember which), so I would be leaving later than we had been planning from the beginning and that she would check out the openings and get back to me within a couple of weeks. That afternoon, I got an email saying my invite was in the mail…… leaving in October to go to AFRICA (cue the happy dance and the jumping around, crying)!!!!! A week later, I got the official package: leaving October 10, going to Tanzania. And I don’t think I’ve gotten a decent night’s sleep since.
Which brings us full circle. I read my job description packet and the entire Welcome Book (well, skimmed–I had already read most of it online several times) and sent in my acceptance email the following day. So, if you’re interested in following this crazy roller coaster life that I’ve chosen, I promise to be more vigilant about updating this blog than I have in blogs past… way more often than once every eight months, for sure.
One more quick note: to my amazing family and friends–thank you SO much for your love and support. I honestly wouldn’t have the strength for this without you!
Cheers.
And now for something completely different..... 